ARISTOTLE

(B. C. 384-322.)

"ARISTOTLE was born in the year 384 B. C., at Stageira, a Grecian colony and seaport town on the Strymonic Gulf in Thrace, not far from Mount Athos and, what is more important, not far from the frontier of Macedonia, and from Pella, the residence of the Macedonian king Amyntas. To Stageira, his birthplace, he owed the world-famous appellation of the Stagirite,' given to him by scholiasts and schoolmen in later days. Aristotle's family were purely Hellenic, and probably the colonists of Stageira lived in strict conformity with Greek ideas, and not without contempt for the surrounding 'barbarians.' . . . Probably the mere locality of his birth produced but little influence upon him, except so far as it led to his subsequent connection with the court of Macedon. His father, Nicomachus, was physician to King Amyntas, and it is possible that the youthful Aristotle was taken at times to the court, and thus made the acquaintance of his future patron, Philip of Macedon, who was about his own age. But all through the time of Aristotle's boyhood, affairs in Macedonia were troubled and unprosperous. ... Up to the time when he left his native city there had appeared no indication of that which afterwards occurred, that Macedonia would conquer the East, and become mistress of the entire liberties of Greece. About the year 367 B. C., when he was seventeen years old, his father having recently died, he was sent by his guardian, Proxenus of Atarneus, to complete his studies at Athens, the metropolis of wisdom.' There he continued to reside for twenty years, during the greater part of which time he attended the school of philosophy which Plato had founded in the olive-groves of Academus, on the banks of the Cephisus. . . . Among his fellow-pupils in the Academe he is said to have got the sobriquet of the Reader'; while Plato himself called him the Mind of the

School,' in recognition of his quick and powerful intelligence.

"The writings of Aristotle are quite consistent with the tradition that he was for twenty years a pupil of the Academic School. They show a long list of thoughts and expressions borrowed from the works of Plato, and also not unfrequently refer to the oral teaching of Plato. They contain a logical, ethical, political, and metaphysical philosophy which is evidently, with some modifications, the organization and development of rich materials often rather suggested than worked out in the Platonic dialogues. Aristotle thus, in constructing a system of knowledge which was destined immensely to influence the thoughts of mankind, became, in the first place, the disciple of Plato and the intellectual heir of Socrates; and summed up all the best that had been arrived at by the previous philosophers of Greece."

In the year that Plato died, 347 B. C., Aristotle left Athens and resided for a few years, first at Atarneus, in Asia Minor, where he married, and then at Mitylene, in the island of Lesbos. He was then invited by Philip of Macedon to become the tutor of Alexander, and resided at the Macedonian court until after the assassination of Philip (336 B. C.), when he returned to Athens. On the death of Alexander, 323 B. C., Aristotle was driven from Athens by the anti-Macedonian party, and retired to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died the following year.

"Perhaps it may be said, in a word, that Aristotle has contributed more than any one man to the scientific education of the world. The amount of the influence which he has exercised may be inferred from the traces which his system has left in all the languages of modern Europe. Our everyday conversation is full of Aristotelian fossils,' that is, remnants of his peculiar phraseology." SIR ALEXANDER GRANT, "Aristotle " ("Ancient Classics for English Readers").

INJUNCTIONS FOR THE KEEPING OF "THE MEAN" BETWEEN EXCESS AND DEFECT.

(From "The Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle," book 2, chap. ii. and ix.; translated by D. P. Chase.)

That we are to act in accordance with Right Reason is a general maxim, and may for the present be taken for granted. . . . But let this point be first thoroughly understood between us, that all which can be said on moral action must be said in outline, as it were, and not exactly : for . . . such reasoning only must be required as the nature of the subject-matter admits of, and matters of moral action and expediency have no fixedness any more than matters of health. And if the subject in its general maxims is such, still less in its application to particular cases is exactness attainable: because these fall not under any art or system of rules, but it must be left in each instance to the individual agents to look to the exigencies of the particular case, as it is in the art of healing, or that of navigating a ship. Still, though the present subject is confessedly such, we must try and do what we can for it.

First, then, this must be noted, that it is the nature of such things to be spoiled by defect and excess; as we see in the case of health and strength (since for the illustration of things which cannot be seen we must use those that can), for excessive training impairs the strength as well as deficient: meat and drink, in like manner, in too great or too small quantities, impair the health: while in due proportion they cause, increase, and preserve it.

Thus it is, therefore, with the habits of perfected SelfMastery and Courage and the rest of the Virtues : for the man who flies from and fears all things, and never stands up against any thing, comes to be a coward; and

he who fears nothing, but goes at every thing, comes to be rash. In like manner, too, he that tastes of every pleasure and abstains from none, comes to lose all selfcontrol; while he who avoids all, as do the dull and clownish, comes as it were to lose his faculties of perception : that is to say, the habits of perfected Self-Mastery and Courage are spoiled by the excess and defect, but by the mean state are preserved.

Furthermore, not only do the origination, growth, and marring of the habits come from and by the same circumstances, but also the acts of working after the habits are formed will be exercised on the same: for so it is also with those other things which are more directly matters of sight, strength for instance: for this comes by taking plenty of food and doing plenty of work, and the man who has attained strength is best able to do these: and so it is with the Virtues, for not only do we by abstaining from pleasures come to be perfected in Self-Mastery, but when we have come to be so we can best abstain from them: similarly too with courage for it is by accustoming ourselves to despise objects of fear and stand up against them that we come to be brave; and after we have come to be so we shall be best able to stand up against such objects.

And for a test of the formation of the habits we must take the pleasure or pain which succeeds the acts; for he is perfected in Self-Mastery who not only abstains from the bodily pleasures but is glad to do so; whereas he who abstains but is sorry to do it has not Self-Mastery: he again is brave who stands up against danger either with positive pleasure or at least without any pain; whereas he who does it with pain is not brave.

There are principally three things moving us to choice, and three to avoidance, the honourable, the expedient, the

pleasant; and their three contraries, the dishonourable, the hurtful, and the painful; now the good man is apt to go right, and the bad man wrong, with respect to all these of course, but most specially with respect to pleasure: because not only is this common to him with all animals, but also it is a concomitant of all those things which move to choice, since both the honourable and the expedient give an impression of pleasure.

That Moral Virtue is a mean state, and how it is so, and that it lies between two faulty states, one in the way of excess and another in the way of defect, and that it is so because it has an aptitude to aim at the mean both in feelings and actions, all this has been set forth fully and sufficiently.

And so it is hard to be good for surely hard it is in each instance to find the mean, just as to find the mean point or centre of a circle is not what any man can do, but only he who knows how: just so to be angry, to give money, and be expensive, is what any man can do and easy but to do these to the right person, in due proportion, at the right time, with a right object, and in the right manner, this is not as before what any man can do nor is it easy and for this cause goodness is rare and praiseworthy and noble.

Therefore he who aims at the mean should make it his first care to keep away from that extreme which is more contrary than the other to the mean; just as Calypso in Homer advises Ulysses

"Clear of this smoke and surge thy barque direct ;" because of the two extremes the one is always more, and the other less erroneous: and, therefore, since to hit exactly on the mean is difficult, one must take the least of the evils as the safest plan; and this a man will be doing if he follows this method.